Sex crimes

People ask me how I like my new job as an investigator. I tell them that the hours are nice, but I had no idea how much of my life would be spent sitting at a desk, going through pictures of phalli.

We live in a very, very different world than we did, 30 years ago.
When I was in my teens, I did not have a device in my possession which could pull up websites capable of meeting people around the globe, chatting with them anonymously in real time, and letting us take pictures and video of our genitals to send to each other. So there were not 13 year old girls getting extorted by foreign creeps who had talked them out of their clothes as well as their identities and social media accounts. There were not men posing as boys, meeting girls online. There were not men posing as fathers of pre-teen girls, soliciting sex from other women with their alleged daughters online. There were not men meeting up online with confused girls who had [literally] infantile fantasies.

We live in a very, very similar world to what we've had forever.
We have teachers having sex with students. We have brothers molesting their sisters, and making them cover it up. We have juvenile rape. We have adult drunken rape. We have buyer's remorse "rapes," in which the victim decides later to call the sex rape. We have enticing of minors. We have family members groping other family members in their sleep. We have teen boys stealing women's underwear.

Honestly? I'm thankful for the residential burglary and the identity theft cases that I've got to break of the monotony.

One of the common themes that I've seen has been repression of sex by the victim's family. In the last year, I've caught one and a half (just helped on one) cases involving a young woman from a sexually repressive family, declaring that she was raped when her family found out that she was having sex. I had a case in which the child's parents had chided the victim as a toddler for being immodest because she took her shirt off around the house, which seems to have contributed to the child not making an outcry for years of her brother molesting her. I've had a retraction of a victim's outcry, when her grandmother told her that she was going to ruin the family.

I'd frankly like to get back to putting other kinds of bad guys and gals in jail.
Please.

She's leaving home (bye, bye)

The day we brought her home from the hospital. 

Renaissance festival, October, 2000. 

Airborne, 2003

All American Girl, Summer, 2009

Horseshoe Bend, Glenn Canyon, AZ, March, 2010. 

Drum Major, 2015

Senior in High School, February, 2016

High school graduate, 2016.

 About three weeks ago, my 18 year old daughter borrowed my pickup. We loaded her bed and her dresser and a bunch of clothes and other odds and ends into it, and she drove it away, with her boyfriend in the front seat. She had spent her last night in her room, and was moving into an apartment with one of her best friends and a friend from work.

She's not ready. Financially, I don't really believe that she's making enough to cover school expenses (though she has a pretty decent scholarship), car, rent, utilities, food, and sundry. She is taking on a good $5000+ in new expenses per year, just for the ability to say that she's moved out, even though her commute to college has only shrunk from 12 to 3 miles, and about the same for work.

I know-- kids want to feel grown up.  And she has a full-time job, and she pulled off a 4.0 GPA in her honors program at university this semester. She's a sophomore. She just bought her own Honda CRV. She's a great kid, and left the house with no animosity for her parents.

So why was I sobbing in my living room for five minutes after she left? Is this what I've become?

Okay, maybe I was the one who wasn't ready.


________________
For what it's worth, the recently remastered release of the Beatles' _Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_ album is absolutely worth a listen. Particularly have I been listening to "She's Leaving Home." (The hotlinked version isn't the remastered one; you'll have to get the album or find it on Spotify or Google Play Music.)

Knee.

There's swelling most of the time in the left knee. After a workout, it throbs for a couple of days. I went to the hotshot orthopedic surgeon who replaced the knees of a couple of my friends and close family. He ordered an MRI, and I went in yesterday to have him explain it to me: "Your knee is borked. You will need a total knee replacement."

I asked when, and he said that he'd like me to try to hold off a few years, because the service life on these things is only about 15-20 years for an average person getting them, of average weight, of average physical activity for a person receiving them... who are generally much older than me. I am well above average in most of those categories.

In the meantime, he wants me to use ibuprofen (which I'm responsive to) to keep the swelling down, and drop 50-100 lbs. (The last time that I was 100 lbs lighter, everyone asked if I had end-stage cancer or AIDS. I'm not going that light again for a LONG time.)  50 lbs would put me at about 242, which isn't a bad weight for me. Of course, running and walking to get my cardio are out, and he's not big on elipticals trainer machines, which I have been using. Maybe bicycling, and definitely swimming. There is a natatorium in the  town next to my town, and annual passes are $125.

I'm looking at bicycles in the 22.5" frame size.

So, I've got some stuff to do, and a body fitness level to trice up.

Of course, that very evening, a "CPR In Progress" call came in. I drove quickly to get to the scene, out in the county. The mobile homes at the site were scattered with no rhyme or reason, and most were not marked. I got out of my cruiser, and ran to a house, which the residents declared to be a different address. Seeing the engine and the ambulance pull up and block my cruiser, I ran south, down the hill toward the next house 100 yards away, and upon finding that address on the porch (please post your address in very large, reflective numbers), I sprinted another 50 or so yards to the next house, and found the appropriate mobile home behind it. I ran in and made patient contact, bringing in the ambulance and fire guys. Once we had the patient buttoned-up in ambulance to go to hospital, a couple of firefighters laughed and said, "Dang, Matt G, we haven't ever seen you run like that before!" I let them know that it does happen, from time to time, though it was amusing that it should happen the same day that a fancy orthopedic surgeon told me not to.

The next morning, the knee was throbbing, some. Eh.

So, less food. More pushups. More coffee (obviously, because that's usually the best answer when you don't know what else to do). Less (I won't say "none at all") beer.

To paraphrase an internet friend of mine who is rapidly recovering from a hernia surgery with post-op infection: Getting fit isn't complicated; it is merely hard.

It's nice to have creative friends. (By which I doubly exclude both Dan Zimmerman and Robert Farago.)

I have some amazingly talented friends who can write*. Some even get paid for it. Some don't.
I have some amazingly talented friends who can photograph. Some even get paid for it. Some don't.
I have some amazingly talented friends who can sing. (You see where this is going.)
Then there are those who have talents for putting things together creatively into a multimedia fashion that defies labeling. One such friend is my friend the Ambulance Driver. Given that he's published a couple of books and is on a regular speaking tour, and teaches a class of his own invention on Shooter Self-Care, and put together a great fundraiser in Kilted To Kick Cancer-- I think that it's probably okay to let the cat out of the bag to say that Ambulance Driver is Kelly Grayson. Kelly, a fellow admirer of my friend Tamara Keel, took a regular piece of hers and made it a multimedia slide show.

Back around 2006, Tamara, in her love of all things Gun Show/ Fun Show, wrote her own words to "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things", and posted them on her blog as "The Gun Show Song." She posts it most of the time that she goes to a gun show. I can't even find the first time that she did so, but it's almost a decade ago, and she has posted the words to it maybe a score of times:

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Kelly cast around to find someone who could sing the song in as Julie Andrews would, and Squeaky stepped up with her trained voice, and recorded it (and very nicely, too) for him.  Then Kelly put the song to slides on a YouTube video of his own creation, and voila! He had made his Christmas gift to Tamara. She liked it.

See? Creative.

But then Dan Zimmerman and Robert Farago over at that The Truth About Guns website did what they do: they stole the content. No attribution was given. They took credit for Kelly's work and Tamara's writing, and Squeaky's singing, without acknowledging whose innovation had created it.

This is not just rude and classless-- it's thievery. Tamara gets paid to talk about, write about, and shoot guns-- which is what The Gun Show Song is a product of that. Kelly gets paid to produce online content. This is their business, however lovingly they may practice it.

Well, stealing things is what Dan Zimmerman and Robert Farago do. They take content of value, host it on their site (without attribution), and then use it as click bait for their links along the sidebar. It's about profit without creating, for them. Notice that I will NOT link to their site. They can die in the cold, and I'm asking you, gentle reader, NOT to go there. Going to their site runs up their hit count meter, which they make money from with their advertisers' links. When they do it to me (and they have), it's just forgetting to attribute a hobbyist. But when they do it to Tamara and Kelly--- they're taking profit from professionals without giving them their due.

Roberta X put it neatly:

   Dan Zimmerman, widely held to be a longtime intellectual property thief and, I am given to understand, founder of Dead Hooker Magazine, has stolen Tam's "Fun Show Song" and posted the lovely video made as a Christmas present for Tam by Ambulance Driver and Squeaky and posted it over at TTAG, the other sink of iniquity and inequity with which he is associated, utterly without attribution to anyone but himself.

     Other than polite reminders (already issued) and the distant possibility of lawyering up -- Tam's a writer and her stock in trade is the unique groupings of words she creates -- there's not a whole lot that can be done.

     But there is one thing.  Cato famously ended every speech he made in the Roman Senate with "Carthage must be destroyed," even if all he was talking about was proclaiming Junior Vestal Day.  The phrase I'd like you to remember and to post all over the Internet is "Dan Zimmerman. Intellectual property thief. Dead Hooker Magazine."  And good morning, search engines! 

Oh, I see that Jennifer has already written a very similar article. Great minds, and all that.
______________________________________
*Okay, when I started hot-linking friends of mine who can write, it didn't really cross my mind that I have a HUGE number of friends who can write, so I gave up pretty early. Don't feel slighted that I didn't link you, friends of mine; I didn't link a LOT of writers.

This is not who we are.

There is a story on National Public Radio about how the Governor of Alabama is apologizing for a recent incident in which a Madison officer body slammed a non-English-speaking Indian man for not complying with his verbal directions.


I made the mistake of reading the comments.


NEVER read the comments.


Many of the comments refer to how police will do such things. Many of them refer to how that's what happens in the Deep South.


I thought that liberals were supposed to be more understanding, and inclusive, and not given toward making sweeping generalizations about people?


The police chief apologized. The department fired the officer, Eric Parker, who performed the leg-sweep and put 57 year-old Mr. Patel down. Mr. Parker has been charged with a crime.


How many ways can we say this? We don't put up with that. That's not who we are.


Please quit tarring us all with that same brush.

Late October. I won't tell you.

This month has thus far been pretty good, but I won't tell you about it.

--I could tell you about the three-day whistle-stop tour of Blogorado 5, where I had the best time with (roommate) A.D. and JPG and Gay Cynic and Tamara and FarmGirl and FarmFam and Old NFO and Stingray and Scribbler and DirtSailor and ERDoc and Scribbler and all the rest, but I won't. We had a great time.

--I could tell you about the drunk who wanted to fight me but I wouldn't let him, or the other drunk who called me an asshole the whole way to the jail and all through book-in, but I won't.

--I could tell you about the wrecks that I worked wearing each my fireman and my police hats, but I won't.

--I could tell you about the injury, and the recovery, and the costs, but I won't.

--I could tell you about the house repairs and the cars, and the expenses and such, but I won't.

--I suppose that I could tell about the kids, and their accomplishments, failures, and lessons learned, and their doings at the school and in their clubs... but I won't.

--I could talk about new laws and politics and such, but I  won't.

--Work squabbles I never much have written about. And still won't.

--I could talk about gun projects and successes and failures, but I won't.

--I could talk about the busy family weekend coming up, but I won't right here and now.  Maybe later.

It is a good month, and there are drawbacks and successes. But I shall choose to see that things are getting Better and Better.

Grimy.

Theo Cottle is a photographer who documents the less glamorous sides of places like Thailand and Germany and the UK. His work is not pornographic, but it's unsavory, and some of it might not be safe for work.

Looking at his documentation of skinheads in the street, I am struck by the common traits among trash in different modern cultures, spanning different races that disdain each other.

Some of these people have less in common with me than the African bushmen, or the Dani of New Guinea.

I am a little defensive of the redneck, at times. There is a popular misconception that the term "redneck" is synonymous with "white trash." That's simply not true. While the terms are not mutually exclusive and there can be some overlap, that's just like saying "plumber" and "Catholic" can overlap.

White trash is world-wide, and even redneck white trash can span continents. Just ask the dwanky zef Boer trash that is Die Antwoord. (Don't watch that. Well, okay, you can watch that, but DON'T watch this. Seriously.)

Trash is universal. Why isn't distaste for it universal?

Bad casting, in my mind.

Johnny Depp is being cast for a new Lone Ranger movie.

Yeah, this guy;

They couldn't find someone who looked a little less comfortable in mascara and eyeliner?

Apparently, someone in Disney had second thoughts about it, but it's back on.

I'll never under understand Hollywood thinking.

A strange phenomenon

Look, I understand about depression. I go there, sometimes. I've been there for longer periods than I'd care to admit. Sometimes it's a state of humanity.

What I don't fully understand is cutting.

I run across cutters a fair bit in my job. I don't want to categorize or anything (middleclasswhitekids), but I do see some consistencies.

Cutters usually don't go very deep. Most break the skin to bleed, but don't really do any nerve and/or ligament damage. Often it's not even triple-thickness cuts. I've seen quite a few where there was a long series of parallel cuts down the arm or leg, which cuts barely bled. Occasionally you'll see deeper, but usually not.

Question: Does this really count as harming yourself? As a desire to do further, more significant harm to yourself?*

People give themselves homemade tats, and most people don't blink an eye. I know of a frat that engages in branding, and people don't much notice. Piercings, gaugings, sub-dermal inserts-- all of these are a form of self-mutilation. But say that a person is a cutter, and people freak, and sometimes even declare that the person is an active danger to himself, who must be taken into immediate medical and psychiatric care, whether or not the patient wants it.

As a libertarian, I say, let 'em go, unless someone else's life is threatened.

As a cop, I have a duty to protect them, if they're an active danger, even if only to themselves. So I try to evaluate if this person seems to be such a danger. Unfortunately, my evaluation is only given a grain of salt, so I have to call in the Ambulance Drivers, who sometimes take a different vies of things than I do.

There are more sanitary ways of self-destruction, people.

________________________
*2nd half of the question was edited later after original post.

Bah. Humbug. Thank you.

There's snow on the ground. My girls were giddy as I took them to school today. It won't last, but it's a fun sight for north Texas in early December.

The New York Times published a fun little bit of history: The original manuscript for A Christmas Carol. Like I always do, I flipped quickly to my favorite part, about Old Fezziwig:

“He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?”

“It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

Dickens was writing about more than some silly feeling evoked by a season. He was writing about the simple acts of kindness that bring dignity and even joy to one's labors. You may not be a supervisor, but you probably have co-workers. You, by yourself, can make their existence a little more cheerful, and not in that schmaltzy way of greeting cards and tinsel. Every time you make a person feel welcome at their job, or proud of their work, you have helped give their life some more meaning.

I'm not kidding about this.

Try to catch somebody doing their job well, and tell them that you notice it. And after chatting with a co-worker or a friend or even a family member, thank them for their time and conversation. (I learned this last one recently from my friend John Shirley, who teaches me small but important things, once in a while.)

Consider this my late Thanksgiving post. I give thanks for those around me-- even strangers-- who help give joy and meaning to my life.

“A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.”

“Small!” echoed Scrooge.

Silly little scam email.

We all get Nigerian 419 scam emails. This one hit my email today, and banks on the recipient's greed that they will send $219 in the hopes of getting free money.

Believe it or not, I actually had someone receive some very nicely-forged travelers cheques and try to cash them before sending money, and they brought them to my PD to make a complaint. I asked whether the complainant had sent any money, and the complainant responded that they thought that it probably was a scam, and had not. I didn't even bother with a case number, typing a quick incident report instead. There's zero chance of catching these international folk. You just have to be alert, and send to money to uninvited emails.

I post this scam text in its entirety simply to document it on the search engines. Then again, people who are smart enough to check the text via a search engine are usually smart enough to know not to respond to this kind of scam.

The email title is: Alert:shipment information

"Customer Service:We have been waiting for you to contact us for your Package that is been registeredwith us for shipping to your residential location. We had thought that your sendergave you our contact details. It may interest you to know that a letter is also addedto your package. However, we cannot quote the content of your package, except that ithas a Bank Draft worth of $288,000.00 (Two Hundred and Eighty Eight Thousand USDollars). As you know, FedEx does not ship money in CASH or in CHEQUES but BANKDRAFTS are shippable.

The package is registered with us for mailing by an official of the united nationoffice in UK. We are sending you this email because your package is been registeredon a Special Order. What you have to do now, is to contact our Delivery Departmentfor immediate dispatch of your package to your residential address. Note that as soonas our Delivery Team confirms your information, it will take three (3) working days(72Hrs) for your package to arrive at your designated destination.For your information, the VAT & Shipping charges as well as Insurance fees have beenpaid by your colleague before your package was registered.Note that the payment that is made on the Insurance, Premium & ClearanceCertificates, are to certify that the Bank Draft is not a Drug Affiliated Fund DAF)neither is it funds to sponsor Terrorism in your country. This will help you avoidany form of query from the Monetary Authority of your country.However, you will have to pay a sum of £105 GBP which is equivalent to $210 USD tothe FedEx Delivery Department being full payment for the Security Keeping Fee of theFedEx Company as stated in our privacy terms & condition page. Also be informed thatyour colleague wished to pay for the Security Keeping charges, but we do not acceptsuch payments considering the fact that all items & packages that is registered withus have a time limitation and we cannot accept payment without knowing when you willbe picking up the package or even respond to us. So we cannot take the risk to haveaccepted such a payment incase of any possible demurrage. Kindly note that yourcolleague did not leave us with any further information.We hope that you respond to us as soon as possible because if you fail to responduntil the expiry date of the foremost package, we may refer the package to theBritish Commission for Welfare as the package do not have a return address. Kindlycontact the delivery department (FedEx Delivery Post) with the details given below:
Contact Person: Mr. Richard raynor
Email: fedex.09_@live.com
Tel: +234-7062266794
Kindly complete the below form and send it to the email address given above.. This is mandatory to reconfirm your Postal address and telephone numbers.
FULL NAMES:
TELEPHONE:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
As soon as your details are received, our delivery team will give you the necessarypayment procedure so that you can effect the payment for the Security Keeping Fees.As soon as they confirm your payment of £105 GBP which is equivalent to $210 USD,they shall immediately dispatch your package to the designated address. It usuallytakes 72 Hours being an express delivery service.Ensure to contact the delivery department with the email address and ensure to fillthe above form as well to enable successful reconfirmation.

Yours Faithfully,
Mrs .chiara dallavalle
FedEx Online Management Team.
All rights reserved. © 1995-2009 FedEx."

Don said it best, so why would I try to upstage him?

I drop by the local convenience store for a Red Bull to get me through tonight's soporific statistics class. Huh. The four-pack is cheaper. Hell, we KNOW I'll drink 'em. So I grab the four-pack.

At the counter is a woman who, while not young, is not nearly old enough to account for her toothlessness. Said lack of dentition is made most evident by the lateral jaw motion that she keeps making to set and reset her dentures, which causes her to do a credible impression of an ungulate chewing cud. I plop down my pack of taurine and caffeine, and give an audible gasp when she rings it up. Sure, it's cheaper than a six pack of my preferred beer, but it runs a little higher than most twelve-packs of cola. Yikes. I hand her my debit card.

She runs it through the swipe strip at about 2 inches a second. Sssswiiiiiipe. Not surprisingly, it does not work. She does it again, running it through slower, this time taking four full seconds to negotiate the 4" channel. I force a smile, and mention that this card likes to go fast. I can feel the line of customers grow behind me. This of course makes her take pause, cocking her hand on her hip as she declares (I just wanted her to go! Go! This card has worked three times today on the first swipe. It's NEVER failed. Ev. Er.) that it does look pretty old, at that. She then goes straight to the plastic bag trick, as referenced by Don Gwinn a year or two ago.

"It really doesn't need that." I protest. "It works fine..."

She swipes it quickly and with a smooth flick, and it works. Just like it was designed to, when the card is swiftly drawn through the swipe slot. She smiles triumphantly and says, "See? Works every time."

"Yes," I say, looking pointedly at my card as I put it back into my wallet. "It does."

I'm sure she's a wonderful person. Kind to children and small animals, and such.
So why do I hate her soooooooo much, just now?

American Hunters and Shooters Association

The American Hunters and Shooters Association does not represent the law-abiding gun-owner's rights.

Oh, they say that they do.

But they do not.*

Their web site is a fan dance of implications that it's a pro-gun rights group. But even its own site lays out their group's policy statement on its stance toward allowing FBI access to NICS records (which NICS was never supposed to be used for. That was how it got passed-- on the promise that it would never be used in this way.).

The implication is that all decent gun-owners are hunters, and that those interested in conservation should be interested in joining their association. In fact, they use that last issue (conservation) as a wedge for shooters. They accuse the NRA of failing to support conservation efforts, and that's why the NRA is a bunch of baddies.

Friends, this is a red herring. The NRA is not about conservation, any more than the AMA is about airline deregulation.

If you were thinking about joining the AHSA in a support of 2nd Amendment issues, think again. In this statement from their president Ray Schoenke, they take shots at the NRA, and make clear that they plan to equivocate their support for the 2nd Amendment:

And, for 77 million gun-owning Americans who are not Members of NRA, we invite you to join an organization that is steadfast in protecting our Second Amendment rights, conserving our environment, and will support common sense efforts to keep guns away from criminals.

This is code for "abating your rights."

And what about Ray Schoenke and his fellow leadership of the AHSA? They are, to a man, people who work for abridging and banning rights to own firearms. Ray Schoenke himself has donated over $10,000 to the Brady campaign. Jon Rosenthal campaigned for and saw passed some of the strictest handgun registration laws in this country, in Mordor Maryland. Joseph J. Vince, Jr is literally the head of a hired gun organization supported by Handgun Control Inc.

When Barrack Obama tells you that he supports 2nd Amendment rights, and claims as proof that he is supported by the AHSA, understand that he is in fact thus proving his support for the abridgement of your rights to keep and bear arms. Barack Obama wants to take your 2nd Amendment right (which is not about hunting) away.

Advocates for a given right do not, first shake out of the box, qualify their support. Politics is about compromise. If your advocate is compromising from the start, what will the eventual compromise be? Will you be advanced in your fight for your rights, or regressed?

Do not compromise. Certainly do not do so by throwing in with conniving, mealy-mouthed, weasel-talking, inverse-speaking people such as these. Keep your rights, and don't sign on with those who would take them.

You. Hold. You HOLD!
___________________________________________________________________
*The popular term for this type of person is "liar."

You might have heard of it, Dick.

"They can have all the guns we want in the fed building," Daley said. "They can have all the guns. But why should we as a city not be able to protect ourselves from those who want guns in our society?"

Well, because of a little thing called The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as ratified in 1789, and upheld by SCOTUS on this date, per Heller.

See, municipalities can get more restrictive, so long as they aren't violating the Constitution of the United States.

Maybe I should make this easier for you, Mr. Daley:

Your city also can't decide which religion people follow.
Your city can't stop the redress of grievances against the government.
Your city can't stop peaceable assembly.
Your city can't stop free travel.
Your city doesn't get to compel people to testify against themselves.
Your city doesn't get to search people's homes without probable cause or a warrant issued by a magistrate.
Your city doesn't get to assess unreasonable bonds, or impose cruel or unusual punishment.
Your city doesn't get to deny due process.
Your city doesn't get to deny equal protection under the law.
Your city doesn't get to deny any non-felon individual of majority age the right to vote.
Your city can't compel involuntary draft for military service.

Why not?

Because the Constitution of the United States says you cant, you knob.

Cranky.

Due to relative physical inactivity over the last few months, my body has gotten to feeling a bit neglected. We all like to be left alone sometimes, but after awhile, we want someone to come throw us a ball and take us for a walk. And, like a terrier who's been left at home alone one too many times in a week and in return decides to pee in your bed, my back decided to knot up on me.

Starting Friday, it was so tight that I could barely stand upright. No pain while lying down or sitting, but the latissimus dorsi in my lumbar region simply did not want to see me standing erect, and gave me to understand that, while the tightness was just a warning shot across the bow, further attempts to get active would result in Pain.

I puttered about my weekend activities, having coffee with my brother, meeting my friend Paula the SculptureLady for dinner, and shooting a plate match with my dad. But always, always, the tightness and growing imminent threat of pain. Actually, I'll just have to admit that sore aching was indeed occurring, which I'll have to grant counts as pain. Technically.

But I was trying to put it off. I put it off because I get this about once a year, and after a few days, it usually goes away without intervention. But my wife got tired of watching me creak around making old man sounds, and told me to check on a chiropractor today.

_ _ _
I appreciate that a chiropractor can do great things for an ailing back. My late uncle was a doctor of chiropractic, who on one occasion provided me with a treatment. I was to leave for my vacation in 4 hours, and I was in a bad way. A disc had displaced enough that I was in serious pain, even while sitting. My uncle saw me on zero notice, manipulated my back for about 45 minutes, and sent me on my way, with my pain gone. At the very least, my vacation was saved. So I know that it can be done.

Then, too, are the guys that are in it for the long haul. The return visit and the recurring appointment is all they're interested in. My wife, after a significant car crash, decided just to have herself checked out. I encouraged her to do so, not wanting her to miss a subtle injury if she had been hurt. Insurance would cover the cost. After her third frustrating visit of leaving the "injury clinic" and telling them repeatedly "I'm not actually feeling any pain, thank you. The treatments are nice, but I just want to be released with the assurance that I'm not injured," I accompanied her to the office, and we put our foot down-- there would be no more treatments without a diagnosis. (Ending treatment before medically recommended would of course have meant that we would have to pay, instead of the insurance, we were told.) The medical doctor gave the nod, and finally my wife was free-- and she'd never even been injured to begin with. The cost went to over $1000.
_ _ _

So this morning I walked into a conveniently local chiropractic clinic to see about the possibility of a quick back manipulation. Oh, heavens, no. That would take an appointment for one-- no, two-- weeks distant. Well, I thought as I leaned over the counter-- I'm glad I'm not in any real pain (ache). I asked about the cost. Did I have insurance? Oh, sure. Blue Cross. The lady behind the counter worked it up and cheerfully informed me that my first visit would be $176 with insurance, but $182 without. Future visits could be discounted without insurance, at only $46 per visit.

As my eyes glazed over, I noticed that this woman was wearing scrubs.
The woman behind her, pasting labels onto manila folders and doing some kind of billing tasks on a computer, was wearing scrubs.
Why do simple office clerks wear scrubs in doctors' offices, hospitals, veterinary clinics, dentist's offices, and, I now see, chiropractic offices? Seriously...? What's the point? Why can't they just dress professionally, and leave the attire of medical professionals to the medical people? Why do I have to read the little tag (that's always flipped over backwards anyway) to read the 4 point type under their name to learn that they are either a D.O. or a D.C. (Heh. Don't make the mistake of calling the former the latter, mm'kay?) or an LVN or an RN or a PA or a professional toilet backup maintenance specialist? Look, I understand that the days of the cap and pin with white uniforms and white hosiery is gone for nurses, and that the white lab coat is on its way out for doctors, but can't we just agree that the person making my appointments and swiping my credit card is an office clerk, and not a Medical Professional? There is nothing wrong with being "just a clerk." Nothing at all. This world would stop running without them. But let's not put on airs and call them medical staff; they're not.

I came out of my fog to hear the chirpy clerk-in-scrubs ask if a Thursday afternoon would be sufficient, two weeks from now. Fine. As she filled out an appointment card, she told me that I would be assessed a penalty charge for failing to notify them that I was cancelling the appointment with less than 24 hours' notice. Well, at least she got that part right-- my plan was to cancel in a couple of days, as soon as my back pain tightness subsided.

"Sir, while you're here, do you mind if I photocopy your driver's license and insurance card?" the chipper clerk asked me as I turned away to hobble toward the door.

I stopped and turned around just enough to make eye contact with her. "Yes. I do," I said evenly, and went out the door.

Eh. I think my tightness is beginning to subside, anyway.

Bah.